They think they can hold me.Break me.Force me to beg.They have no fucking idea.
I stay still.
Spine straight.
Shoulders squared.
He steps into me and lifts the gun, the barrel aimed squarely at my head.It’s meant to intimidate, to remind me who still holds the power in this place.It's a performance.The same tired threat he’s used a thousand times to keep men crawling at his feet.
But I don’t flinch.Instead, I move.
I lean into it, pushing the barrel until the cold steel is pressed flush against my skin.I drive it harder into my own forehead.The metal digs deep, bruising already, unforgiving in the way it kisses bone.
I don’t break eye contact.I want him to see it.This isn’t fear.It’s a challenge.I’m daring him, right here, right now.Because if he wants to kill me, he’s going to have to do it while looking into the eyes of the man he created and the man he will never control again.
My heart pounds.A brutal, violent rhythm slamming against my ribs like it’s trying to break free, but I force myself to breathe slowly, steady, controlled.I won’t give him the satisfaction.I won’t let him see fear on my face.Not now.Not ever.
“You were supposed to inherit everything,” he growls.“I built an empire for you.For our family.”He spits the word like it still means something.“And you threw it all away for a fucking girl.”
I meet his eyes, unflinching.Let him rage.Let him scream.Let him writhe in his own delusion.He can’t reach what I feel.He can’t shatter what’s already been reforged.He doesn’t get to erase what’s mine.
His snarl sharpens, lips curling in frustration as the silence stretches.
“Say something,” he snaps, voice cracking just slightly around the edges as he shoves the gun harder against my skull.“Don’t think I won’t do it because I fucking will”
But I don’t break.I never fucking will.
Even with the barrel pressed to my head, even with his men holding me down like I’m nothing but a body to be disposed of, I hold steady.Because in this moment, if these are my last minutes on this fucked-up earth, it isn’t his face I see.It’s not the stone-cold bastards holding me down.
It’s her.
Emery.
Her eyes burning fierce, defiant, beautiful like a wildfire that won’t be tamed.Her mouth curling into that stubborn, reckless smile I fell in love with before I even knew what love was.That’s what fills my vision.That’s what grounds me when the world is shaking.
If I die here, on this blood-streaked floor, I won’t regret it.Because I chose her.And I’d choose her again.Every.Single.Fucking.Time.
Chapter Twenty
Emery
IneverpromisedMatteoI’dstay away.
He told me to.
Demanded it.
Like leaving me behind was some noble sacrifice.
As if shutting me out of the war would somehow keep me safe.But I’d already spent half my life dancing on the edge of a blade.
But what Matteo didn’t know… well actually what none of them knew, was that I already had a card to play.One my father left behind.
Long before Matteo ever showed up at that diner, full of fury and hands that made my body betray every ounce of common sense, I was already surviving.Already moving.Before the ropes.Before the threats.Before his cock slipped between my thighs and turned my world sideways, I had already learned how to run.How to disappear.How to hide in plain sight.
When I bolted from my old life, I didn’t grab much.A box, some cash, and whatever scraps of me that hadn’t been shattered yet.And at the bottom of that box there was a flash drive.Small.Black.Unmarked.
My father’s carelessness turned out to be my salvation.
